Construct IT Spring 2009 Members' Meeting

in conjunction with the University of Institute Wales, Cardiff
 
Summary (2 of 2)
Following lunch, Dr Jonathan Rains (Divisional Director, Mouchel) began the afternoon session with a presentation entitled 'Water Utilities: AMP5 Experiences'. Jonathan began by providing an introduction to Mouchel followed by AMP5. The 5th Asset Management Plan period (AMP5) runs between 2010 and 2015 is being approached as an exciting, reinvigorating challenge. The water utilities industry is heavily regulated, with 10 water utilities companies in the UK and 5 year investment plans in place. While the focus of previous AMPs was purely on creating work programmes to meet environmental quality requirements, the introduction of the Carbon Reduction Commitment in 2010 brings with it further obligations for public bodies to reduce their carbon emissions, energy use, etc. Therefore the fifth part of the investment plans have to consider whole life cycle costs in relation to sustainability and reducing energy consumption. Jonathan then discussed the aligned objectives to align tools, processes with the client's business plan, the adoption of Business Collaborator open to all, top-down buy-in, and aligned objectives from strategic to project through to personal objectives of individuals. Nine key supply chain principles for their client was presented which evolve around people, process and systems and include being integrated as 'one supply chain', the adoption of NEC designs and building contracts, engaging in fewer contractors, developing the expert client, improving standards and specifications, driving innovation, having quality management systems in place, and adopting the right technology. This is achieved through an aligned system and getting knowledge transfer into the business with input from the strategic client, alliances and suppliers, gearing into KPI measures, staff appraisals, training, benchmarking and best practices, supply chain reviews, approved vendor database, business process re-engineering, rewarding good performance, technical forums, and providing solutions (not issues). This in turn provides intelligence of the preferred partner choice, improved safety, better quality and higher productivity. Jonathan next discussed driving innovation and the link between 'project need' with 'innovation feature' being crucial and essential in matching the need to feature in order to optimise the benefits and the generation of new ideas. Jonathan demonstrated this through the results shown in the FastNett project that is targeting zero pollution incidents and delivered 15% savings in capital costs (whole life carbon calculations). In addition, the project will form the future framework for carbon models, strategic planning and optimisation to achieve lowest risks. Innovation is also being driven by the Technology Approval Group who engage with clients, investors and inventors to take innovation from concept to commercialisation. Jonathan also discussed the customer service concept in Mouchel of 'helping our customers help theirs'. This is made evident by building trust with stakeholders by means of communication and reporting, policy, principles and behaviours; encompassing positive impact on the world around us through the community and environment; delivering responsibilities to customers, suppliers and partners; and making Mouchel a great place to work by way of health, safety and wellbeing, as well as individual rights and believes. An example of Mouchel's community initiatives at Clyst Vale was presented which aimed to solve the problem of sampler blockage and collecting feedback from the community - a prototype was built and trials were held on-site. Jonathan concluded his session by stating that success requires aligning objectives at all levels, driving innovation for realising projects and building customer service through relationships. Discussion focused of the use of BIM by the client but there being loopholes. The major setback is that there is a vast amount of disparity of applications, i.e. no industry standards on BIM.
 
'ManuBUILD and Logistics Integration' was the next presentation by David Leonard (Commercial Manager, VINCI Construction UK (formally known as Taylor Woodrow)). ManuBUILD is a recently completed EU part-funded 4 year integrated project, costing €19.4 million, and with 23 European partners that was aimed at moving from a craft-based industry towards open-building manufacturing. David mentioned various technical topics and live demonstrations had resulted from the project, however the theme of the presentation would be logistics integration. David defined construction logistics as providing the correct physical things to the correct locations at the correct times; providing documentation and information to those who need it; protecting things from supplier to customer (eg. theft, weather, physical damage); handling, storage and safety requirements (people and COSHH); and delivery tolerances. He then discussed a number of aspects must be considered to achieve this such as cost, methods to reduce cost, multi-tier supply chains, environmental impact of transport and delivering, cost of buffer stores and understanding the needs of suppliers and transport contractors. The possible solutions for the problems could be derived from model based information (BIM), ERP type information, FM systems, IFC-mBomb and COBIE (Model-Based Operation And Maintenance Of Buildings and Construction Operations Building Information Exchange) and lower level planning, i.e. integrated model driven scheduling and last planner style scheduling. Consolidation centres were next discussed which were built to identify the location, schedules and consignment information of delivery vehicles, usage rates of materials being stored, scheduling of supplier vehicles delivering into the centres, logging consignment received and delivered, and logistics co-ordination if required. A case study Centre which was set-up (Wilson+James) to serve a construction project in central London was presented. The following benefits were identified: waste reduction (up to 15% of contract value); supplier and manufacturer delivery cost saving (can be 20% of what is being delivered); avoiding demurrage charges (averaging €100 per incident), trade contractors (regularly save 5% to 15% of contract value); reduction of local journeys by 40% up to 70%; reduction of journey times by 30 to 60 minutes (up to 120 minutes in London); delivery reliabilities and accuracies of 97%; reduction in site storage with related shrinkage; trade contractors spend less time searching and waiting for materials; and reduction in C02 from trucks can be up to 76%. David then discussed that business, information, and system architectures along with software applications are all essential to achieve logistics integration. Business architecture describes the core business activities, structure, clients and value chain, among others. Information architecture is the process network supporting the business architecture and dictates what information is created, used and exchanged, while system architecture is an ICT system to support the information architecture and integrates the processes and software applications. Software applications will include BPMN (Business Process Modelling Notation) and IDM (Information Delivery Manual). Information structures are embedded within the BIM information. This provided critical information such as customer and manufacturer's general information, manufacturer/supplier start, finish, dispatch and delivery times, transportation contractor's information (eg. contract, contract numbers) and consignment information (eg. content, size, mass), and much more. This in turn provided information to manage risk, in terms of the uniqueness of the content, technical issues and reasons for non-performance. This resulted in the ManuBUILD solution of multi-tier supply chain coordination, which incorporates a logistics coordination server with BIM and planning information. This solution provides improved transparency, identifies possible problems and their cause, along with risk and impact assessment. A UK demonstration building of a medium rise residential project in New Addington which was selected as a test case was then presented. The project consisted of a total of 959 modules which were to be assembled in a 10 week period, with a manufacturing rate of 10 modules per day in a congested project site. Lessons learnt in architectural design include the need to control the number of variants of manufactured modular parts is a challenge for designers; system suppliers need to consider reference arrangements for corners areas; the structural philosophy, assembly method, transportation and lifting considerations have to be understood by the architect; strategic decisions have to be made early in the process, leaving decisions to site workers is not an option; effective off-site-manufacturing requires 10 times more information than that required for in-situ construction and that information is required early in the process; many architects are not familiar with the disciplined ways of working demanded by off-site-manufacturing; and there is a need for Design For Manufacture and Assembly (DFMA) iterations involving the architectural designers, contractors and manufacturers. In terms of manufacturing and the lessons learnt, it was understood that manufacturing plants require serious investment in the order of £5 million+; choosing a manufacturer early has benefits but also includes big risks; the scope for production runs of identical modules is limited; production rates for manufacturing for individual projects are likely to be less than the site assembly rate; there needs to be an effective exchange of technical information between contractors, manufacturers and contractors; and off-site manufacturing still appears to be more expensive than in-situ construction. From the perspective of the lessons in logistics and assembly, volumetric modules can be very fast to assemble on site (1 every 30 minutes is feasible); fast rates of site assembly need the methods and logistics to be worked out meticulously; careful detailing reduces localised damage; assembly sequences need to be 100% complete and 100% accurate; much more detail is required than is traditionally included on construction project programmes; adding programme detail is very boring and requires skill and better software tools are required; fast assembly requires close collaboration between contractor, manufacturer and transportation contractors; much more discipline is required from both companies and individual workers; information used by the site people needs to be complete, accessible and very easy to use; and training for supervisors and operatives is definitely needed. Discussion focused around the manufacturer having to re-design the architectural designs; having the know how for logistics integration but this not currently being adopted; logistics information being the same as procurement and FM information, and the challenge being to build a business case in order to facilitate adoption, which the project has not produced - while cost and benefits for logistics have been identified this was not produced for the housing modular part.
 
The final presentation of the day was given by Ramesh Sinhal (Highways Agency, UK) and focused on 'Asset Managing the Strategic Road Network'. Ramesh began by discussing that the Highways Agency (HA) who are responsible for managing 4,440 miles of motorways which carries 25% traffic volume and 50% HGV traffic. These assets are valued at £82 billion, whereby £800m are used for road maintenance and £975m for major improvements. Major assets held by the HA include pavement, drainage, structures, earthworks (geotechnics), technology and environment. The HA's asset management vision is to be a leading network operator by taking a long term strategic approach to the management and monitoring of its asset performance by using Whole Life Cost (WLC) principles; performance tools to monitor and drive delivery of operational outputs and outcomes; optimised maintenance scheduling and works to ensure best value; modelling tools to plan and justify strategic investment; and using a single repository for asset information with unified standards and comparable measures for condition, degradation and geographical location. WLC in the HA is aimed at maintaining the road network at a minimum. This is achieved by providing the right treatment in the right place at the right time, adoption of procurement on a maximum whole life value basis (OGC push), and implementing WLC for major road projects. Drivers of the HA's WLC plans evolve around safety, value for money, journey time reliability (eg, road user delays, maximise lane availability, minimise works duration and night time closures) and balancing priorities (eg. road user delays, impact on road workers and social/environmental needs). WLC of asset maintenance incorporate scheme analyses (pavements, geotechnics and drainage), network analyses, and Asset Management Strategy for ongoing developments. For major projects, WLC is achieved by minimum procurement standards (value for money), WLC and fitness for purpose, and health and safety considerations. In managing road pavements, there are 4 aspects associated with data held in the HA's Network Data Repository: asset information (location, inventory, maintenance history, traffic using the asset, and documents that give further specific details about the pavement); road condition data from network wide routine surveys (eg. TRACS - pavement surface condition and SCRIM - skid resistance); budgetary (eg. spending reviews and annual maintenance programmes, and scheme analyses for works prioritisation all based on WLC analyses); and supplementary information (accidents, video and road space management). Ramesh then discussed WLC in Management Processes which is conducted by means of data from the asset systems feeding WLC analyses and are used for budgeting and forward planning. This also links to value management and the WLC of specific maintenance schemes and then programme delivery. Asset data is used to support the annual assessment of asset value and the development of strategic plans for funding, which are all assessed in terms of maintaining the network at minimum whole life cost, subject to affordability constraints. Data in the asset systems is also used to report the condition of the asset against the target condition set in terms of maintaining at minimum WLC. Although the development of an integrated asset management system with the required analysis capabilities cannot be provided in time for the next spending review some quick win developments which aim to improve WLC tools to support Spending Review 2009 for major asset types (drainage, geotechnics and structures) have been approved. This includes using existing scheme level and network level tools, completing the development of scheme level tools, and developing budgeting network level tools for drainage, geotechnics and structures. While future developments within the HA are focused on the quick win developments to improve the capabilities of the HA in this area, this is not the end point. Ramesh went on to discuss the need to fully understand how specific assets perform and how best to represent that and to fully incorporate the constraints on maintenance in terms of safety, journey time reliability and access on to the network. Finally, the integration of data, scheme level analyses, network level analyses suitable for all assets and estimating Spending Review budgets and generating annual maintenance programmes being essential to produce intelligent-based decisions was presented. Ramesh concluded that the provision of a high quality service to customers while understanding how the assets can be maintained in a most efficient manner may need organisational changes but will also require improved asset management tools to get the best from the data already collected. This has to be carried out in an organic way and not via a 'big bang' solution. The discussion that followed included the HA focusing on more strategic aspects such as the types of vehicles, vehicle movement timings, etc.; sharing knowledge while recognising the boundaries, risks, etc.; and many LAs adopting the best practice of a UK Procurement Management System although using it subtly difference due to types of roads, practice such as submitting their local road maintenance agenda, etc.